Photographer Builds Black Greeting Cards Line

There were no broad noses crinkled in laughter. No muscular mocha arms holding newborns close. No giggling girls running through a field of daisies as their plaits flop in the breeze.

Robin McNeil, 38, of Loganville wanted everything to be perfect for her husband's first Father's Day — especially the card.

"I knew what I wanted to see — an African-American man being a dad, but I didn't see any African-Americans at all," she said. "I didn't see pencil art, I didn't see graphics. That's when I thought, 'This is ridiculous.' I refused to buy anything else."

So that Father's Day in 2003, McNeil, a photographer, decided to leave the cards at the supermarket and make a card of her own. She flipped through her collection of photographs for an image that seemed just right — a black dad walking hand-in-hand with his daughter.

She attached the picture to cardstock paper and printed a personal Father's Day card.

It was the first in a collection the stay-at-home Loganville mother of two would soon design. Her greeting cards, Reflections of Us, now sell in stores in the Atlanta area, Pittsburgh, New Orleans, and online at www.reflectionsofus.net.

Read more: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution